• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.10 s.253
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• pp.942-949
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• 2006

A lumped model is proposed to predict liquid ejection characteristics of a thermally driven inkjet print head. The model is based on a two-dimensional heat conduction equation, an empirical pressure-temperature equation and a nonlinear hydraulic flow-pressure equation. It has been simulated through the construction of an equivalent R-C circuit, and subsequently analyzed using SIMULINK and a circuit simulation tool, PLECS. Using the model, heating and cooling characteristics of the head are predicted to be in agreement with the IR temperature measurements. The effects of the head geometry on the drop ejection are also analyzed using the nonlinear hydraulic model. The present model can be used as a design tool for a better design of thermal inkjet print heads.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.337-342
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• 2022

Although printing technology has recently been widely used in IT fields including displays and fuel cells, residual and thermal stress are generated by a manufacturing process of stacking the layers of the print head and result in the substrate deformation and nozzle plate crack, which may cause ink leaks or not be ejected onto a desired region. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new design of thermal inkjet print head with a robust and reliable structure. Diverse types of inkjet print head such as a rib, pillar, support wall and individual feed hole are designed to reduce the deformation of the substrate and nozzle plate, and their feasibility is numerically investigated through FEA analysis. The numerical results show that the maximum stress and deformation of proposed print head dramatically drops to at least 40~50%, and it is confirmed that there is no nozzle plate cracks and ink leakage through the fabrication of pillar and support wall typed print head. Therefore, it is expected that the proposed head shape can be applied not only to ink ejection in the normal direction, but also to large-area printing technology.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.2 s.257
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• pp.141-150
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• 2007

This paper presents a lumped model to predict crosstalk characteristics of thermally driven inkjet print heads. Using the lumped R-C model, heating characteristics of the head are predicted to be in agreement with IR temperature measurements. The inter-channel crosstalk is simulated using the lumped R-L network. The values of viscous flow resistance, R and flow inertance, L of connecting channels are adjusted to accord with the 3-D numerical simulation results of three adjacent jets. The crosstalk behaviors of a back shooter head as well as a top shooter head have been investigated. Predictions of the proposed lumped model on the meniscus oscillations are consistent with numerical simulation results. Comparison of the lumped model with experimental results identifies that abnormal two-drop ejection phenomena are related to the increased meniscus oscillations because of the more severe crosstalk effects at higher printing speeds. The degree of crosstalk has been quantified using cross-correlations between neighboring channels and a critical channel dimension for acceptable crosstalk has been proposed and validated with the numerical simulations. Our model can be used as a design tool for a better design of thermal inkjet print heads to minimize crosstalk effects.